Acknowledgment

Perhaps once in a hundred years a person may be ruined by excessive praise, but surely  once every minute someone dies inside for lack of it.
– Cecil G. Osborne, author
 

Action/Results

To fight fear, act. To increase fear, wait, put-off, postpone.
– David J. Schwartz

Procrastination is the fear of success. Rationalization is the fear of failure.
– Denis Waitley , author as heard on Let’s Talk Business Network

It’s in the preparation–in those dreary pedestrian virtues they taught you in 7th grade and you didn’t believe. It’s making the extra call and caring a lot.
– Diane Sawyer

People with goals succeed because they know where they are going… It’s as simple as that.
– Earl Nightingale

You don’t get points for intent, only for results.
– Annie Morita, VP, Columbia TriStar – 2001 Fast 50 winner

Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.
– Stephen A. Brennan, American basketball coach

I will persist until I succeed. Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult… I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking.
– Og Mandino, Author

One hundred percent of the shots I don’t make don’t go in.
– Wayne Gretzky, legendary hockey star

When the mind talks, the body listens. We literally talk ourselves into and out of every victory or defeat in the game of life.
– Dr. Denis Waitley, human performance scientist

A thought which does not result in an action is nothing much, and an action which does not proceed from a thought is nothing at all.
– Georges Bernanos, French Novelist & Political Writer

Brilliance is an after-the-fact perception created by success. There’s no fast path, no magic formula. It’s all hard work and perseverance.
– Steve Mills of IBM quoted in Business 2.0

Ideas not coupled with action never become bigger than the brain cells they occupied.
– Arnold H. Glasow

Beware of perfect people. They will never propel your enterprise to greatness. They’re too cautious. You’ve got to be fast to be good.
– Dick Brown, chairman and CEO of EDS

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Business

Warning! Nothing is permanent. Anything in excess is a poison. And remember: Everything in business is a paradox. To be excellent, you have to be consistent. When you’re consistent, you’re vulnerable to attack. Yes, it’s a paradox. Now deal with it!
– Tom Peters in Fast Company

To become financially independent you must turn part of your income into capital; turn capital into enterprise; turn enterprise into profit; turn profit into investment; and turn investment into financial independence.
– Jim Rohn

I was dumbstruck. There in a few pages, I read a startling concise summary of everything I’d seen in twenty-one years as a reporter, editor, bureau chief and columnist for my  newspaper. The idea that business, at bottom, is fundamentally human. That engineering remains second-rate without aesthetics. That natural, human conversation is the true language of commerce. That corporations work best when the people on the inside have the fullest contact possible with people on the outside.
– WSJ columnist, Thomas Petzinger Jr.

The greatest value in creating a [business] plan is not the final document. It’s the communication, prioritization, focus, clarity and learning that make the process worthwhile.
– Jim Horan, author and consultant, www.onepagebizplan.com

Historically, the prevailing wisdom in organizations was to check your emotions at the door. Today, organizations are searching for ways to unleash their employees from the barriers of fear, suspicion, apathy and distrust.
– Dr. Michael Rock, BarOn EQ-I specialist

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Change

If you work for a company that doesn’t look forward to change, that views change as a threat not an opportunity, then your company is failing, and it’s failing faster every day. You now have competitors that will get stronger from the turbulence, and over time, they will win.
– Seth Godin in SURVIVAL IS NOT ENOUGH

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
– Robert Heinlein, writer

In times of change the learners will inherit the earth. The knowers will find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
– Unknown

The pace of change is so great, there is always something else going on. What that says to me is that you have to have strategic vision and peripheral vision. Strategic vision is the ability to look ahead and peripheral vision is the ability to look around, and both are important.
– Carly Fiorina, CEO, Hewlett Packard in WSJ

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Curiosity

Although you get promoted by having the right answer, it’s more important to ask the right questions as you climb higher.
– David Garvin, Harvard Business School, quoted by Chuck Salter in Fast Company

Prisoners learn early that the way to survive on the inside is to keep a low profile and follow orders. Sadly, that’s the lesson that workers in most businesses learn.
– John Borchert, GM, The Array Corp.

Hire people with a special kind of stupidity, who ignore or reject how things are ‘supposed to be done around here.’
– Robert Sutton, professor, author, and upcoming RealTime speaker

There’s no substitute for getting smarter faster. And the way that you get smarter is to screw around vigorously. Try stuff. See what works. See what fails miserably. Learn. Rinse. Repeat.
– Tom Peters in Fast Company

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
– Carl Jung, psychologist and philosopher

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
– Ellen Parr, writer

The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, and the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why.
– Albert Einstein

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Customer Service

You know me. I’m a nice person. When I get lousy service, I never complain. I never kick. I never criticize and I wouldn’t dream of making a scene. I’m one of those nice customers. And I’ll tell you what else I am. I’m the customer who doesn’t come back. I take whatever you hand out, because I know I’m not coming back. I could tell you off and feel better, but in the long run, it’s better just to leave quietly. You see, a nice customer like me, multiplied by others like me, can bring a business to its knees. There are plenty of us. When we get pushed far enough, we go to one of your competitors.
– Celina Group

What do you really believe makes a difference in the company? For me it’s really clear. It’s about customers and employees. Everything else follows. If you take care of your customers and you have motivated employees, everything else follows.
– Anne Mulcahy, CEO Xerox Corp., in Rochester Business Journal

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Development/Coaching

The greatest gift you can give somebody is your own personal development. I used to say, “if you will take care of me, I will take care of you.” Now I say, “I will take care of me for you, if you will take care of you for me.”
– Unknown

Time invested in improving ourselves cuts down on time wasted in disapproving of others.- UnknownMore will be accomplished, and better, and with more ease, if every man does what he is best fitted to do, and nothing else.
– Plato

If you want to be prosperous for a year, grow grain. If you want to be prosperous for ten years, grow trees. If you want to be prosperous for a lifetime, grow people.
– Proverb

If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is insight to turn him around.
– Nancy Roberts

Change is inevitable, growth is intentional.
– Glenda Cloud

Unless the distant goals of meaning, greatness, and destiny are addressed, we can’t make an intelligent decision about what to do tomorrow morning–much less set the long-term strategy for a company. Nothing is more practical than for people to deepen themselves.
– Peter Koestenbaum in Fast Company quoted by Polly Labarre

Even in this tough economic climate, we can never invest enough in our people if we want them to do the best work of their lives.
– Pat Fallon, chairman and cofounder of Fallon Worldwide

Weakness fixing might prevent failure, but strength building leads to excellence. Focus on strength, and manage around weaknesses.
– Marcus Buckingham, coauthor of “First, Break All the Rules

[Employees] are going to leave. Instead of worrying about them leaving, we should be taking an interest in their future. We had to learn that part of making people successful means letting go.
– Jennifer Shroeger of UPS, quoted by Keith H. Hammonds in Fast Company

We could all use a little coaching. When you’re playing the game, it’s hard to think of everything.
– Jim Rohn, motivational coach

The minute a man ceases to grow, no matter what his years, that minute he begins to be old.
– William James, philospher and writer

Good people come to companies and stay because they believe they have a chance to expand their capabilities and fulfill their destiny. You have an obligation to help them. So don’t keep a person in a job too long just because he or she is excellent at it; give her another assignment so she can expand herself.
– Larry Bossidy, former Honeywell Chairman & CEO, in strategy + business

It’s the things that pushed you the most…that helped you the most.
– Jim Loehr, performance psychologist

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Diversity

You learn the most by interacting with people who are the least like you. But the reality of life inside… virtually all big companies – is that you spend most of your time with people who are exactly like you.
– Bill Ochalek quoted by Anna Muoio, Fast Company

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Entrepreneurs

One of the ways entrepreneurs convince themselves that their idea is going to work is to weigh the risks and find them acceptable. For example, Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Airlines and the rest of the Virgin Group, examines the downside in everything he does and prepares for the worst. When he started Virgin Airlines, Branson bought just one plane, later explaining, “I had an agreement with Boeing to take it back if things didn’t work out.”
– The Guru Guide to Entrepreneurship, Joseph H. Boyett and Jimmie T. Boyett

Bud Hadfield, who founded Kwik Kopy, recalls that his early entrepreneurial career was quite a struggle: “In a fairly short period of time, I rang up an impressive record of failed businesses. There was my half-interest in a pig farm; the pigs ate so much I virtually gave my half away. I went broke with an ice cream parlor, a gas station, a frozen food business, a fireworks stand and a personnel agency.”
– The Guru Guide to Entrepreneurship, Joseph H. Boyett and Jimmie T. Boyett

Your adversity quotient, or AQ, is about how you respond to the tough stuff in your day. It is a gauge of how much life will beat you up along the way. It is also a predictor of sales, performance, entrepreneurial success, athletic success, innovation, problem solving, long-term health and tenacity.
– Paul Stoltz, author, interview in Costco Connection

Be an alliance maniac. Don’t assume that the best resides within. Work with a changing portfolio of state-of-the-art partners throughout the supply chain. This includes vendors and consultants and, especially, pioneering customers who will pull you into the future.
– Tom Peters

Everything is always impossible before it works. That is what entrepreneurs are all about: doing what people have told them is impossible.
– Unknown

The biggest mistake that you can make is to believe that you are working for somebody else. Job security is gone. The driving force of a career must come from the individual. Remember: Jobs are owned by the company, you own your career!
– Earl Nightingale, author, speaker, motivator

The thousands of people starting home based businesses confirm my belief that a new breed of person is emerging on Earth. Such a person is of higher value doing self-created work instead of a job thought up by others. This person is both independent and committed to service, highly flexible, constantly learns, and gets better and better every year.
– Al Siebert, Ph.D., The Survivor Personality

In retrospect, people will say that 2003 was the best year in a decade to start your own company.
– Seth Godin, Author, Marketer, Entrepreneur

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Faith/Courage

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
– Anais Nin

When you get to the end of all the light you know it’s time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.
– Edward Teller

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Integrity/Humility/Trust

I have learned that integrity is the steadfast refusal to do anything I will dislike myself for having done.
– Unknown

Lying makes a problem part of the future; truth makes a problem part of the past.
– Rick Pitino in Lead to Succeed

A “no” uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a “yes” merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
– Gandhi

It is useless to hold a person to anything he says while he’s in love, drunk, or running for office.
– Shirley MacLaine

Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.
– Benjamin Franklin

Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket, and do not pull it out and strike it merely to show you have one. If you are asked what o’clock it is, tell it, but do not proclaim it hourly and unasked, like the watchman.
– Lord Chesterfield

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
– Ann Landers

It takes bigness of spirit to praise the great and the successful instead of envying them.
– David Dunn

You make a contract when you make an appointment with someone. I’d never let technology distractions abuse that time.
– Stephen Carter, CEO, Cingular Wireless

Honesty has a way of releasing energy, the kind of energy that business desperately needs to embrace. Time after time, I’ve witnessed the paralysis that sets in when people are afraid to tell each other the truth.
– Margaret Heffernan in Fast Company

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough.
– Frank Crane, author

In the small matters trust your mind; in the large ones, the heart.
– Sigmund Freud, M.D.

It’s not true that nice guys finish last. Nice guys are winners before the game even starts.
– Addison Walker

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Leadership

Roughly 50 to 70 percent of how employees perceive their organizations climate can be traced to the actions of one person: the leader. More than anyone else, the boss, creates the conditions that determine people’s ability to work well.
– “Primal Leadership” Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis & Annie McKee

Research shows that for jobs of all kinds, emotional intelligence is twice as important an ingredient of outstanding performance as cognitive ability and technical skill combined, and the higher you go in the organization, the more important these qualities are for success. When it comes to leadership, they are almost everything.
– Daniel Goleman

The ultimate leader is one who is willing to develop people to the point that they eventually surpass him or her in knowledge and ability.
– Fred A. Manske, Jr.

Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy.
– General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

Leaders must learn to discipline their disappointments. It is not what happens to us, it is what we choose to do about what happens that makes the difference in how our lives turn out.
– Jim Rohn

Good leaders make people feel that they’re at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens people feel centered and that gives their work meaning.
– Warren G. Bennis

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born – that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born. Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.
– Warren G. Bennis

Leadership is the wise use of power. Power is the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it.
– Warren Bennis

Leaders have a guiding vision, a passion that allows them to communicate a sense of hope to followers. The key to this communication is not charisma (as many experts have  maintained); what is required is integrity.
– Bruce A. Pasternak (citing Warren Bennis) in Strategy + Business

In fact, leaders of companies that go from good-to-great start not with ‘where’ but with ‘who’. They start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats. And they stick with that discipline – first the people, then the direction – no matter how dire the circumstances.
– Fast Company magazine

Leadership isn’t about simply being in charge and treating your people like soldiers and barking orders. Leadership is sharing your knowledge and your direction so that others grow and reach their potential.
– Cal Ripken

Take a look at your desk. If you’re like most hard-charging leaders, you’ve got a well-articulated to-do list. Now take another look: Where’s your stop-doing list?
– Management Researcher/Educator Jim Collins in FastCompany, October 2001

In the 21st century, organizations have to achieve peak performance through inspiration by unleashing the power of their people–not by leading them, not by managing them, but by inspiring them.
– Kevin Roberts, CEO Saatchi & Saatchi, in Fast Company

We’ve already moved from management to leadership–and we’re about to go beyond leadership to inspiration.
– Kevin Roberts in Fast Company

The qualities that people look for most in leaders are not infallibility or infinite knowledge but confidence in themselves and in their group’s collective ability to find a solution.
– Jerry Colonna, cofounder Flatiron Partners

It’s clear that when vision and strategy are communicated so that people throughout a firm can grasp them, it creates a favorable context that often leads to the emergence of new and unsuspected strategies.
– David K. Hurst in Strategy + Business

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that getting results is all there is to the job.
– Andy Pearson, former CEO of PepsiCo

The secret to being a high-impact leader and the essence of individual and corporate success: Learn as much as you can as quickly as you can and share your knowledge aggressively; expand your network of people who share your values and connect as many of them with each other as possible; and, perhaps most important, be as openly human as you can be and found the courage to express genuine emotion in the harried, pressure-filled world of work.
– Tim Sanders, Yahoo Chief Solutions Officer, in Fast Company magazine

During a crisis, a leader’s responsibilities become infinitely more important. Nothing defeats anxiety and fear like clarity and understanding.
– Paul Clayton, CEO of Jamba Juice

It’s improper for one person to take credit when it takes so many people to build a successful organization. When you try to be top dog, you don’t create loyalty. If you can’t give credit (and take blame), you will drown in your inability to inspire.
– Jim Sinegal, Costco CEO

If people are too intimidated or too reluctant to help their leaders lead, their leaders will fail.
– Michael Useem, author and management professor at the Wharton School

Leadership is a delicate blend of self-confidence and humility.
– Harry Kraemer, CEO of Baxter International

Everyone I’ve spoken with… knows exactly what I’m talking about when I describe the awkward silence that sets in at corporate meetings when it becomes clear that the emperor has no clothes… The problem isn’t that we don’t know the truth. The problem is that we’re afraid to speak the truth.
– Margaret Hefferman in Fast Company

Of all the persistently good companies we studied in “Good to Great,” only one was led by a CEO who had an MBA.
– Jim Collins interviewed in Business 2.0 magazine

Our point of view, based upon the most effective managers we have seen, is that they don’t say ‘Follow me!’ Instead, they say ‘Let me help you!’ The management writers call this ‘servant leadership.’ The key point is that the central goal of either appraoch is to get your people enthused, excited, and energized. Unless you have a very special skill, then we suggest you focus on what excites each of your people, not (just) on what excites you.
– First Among Equals: How to Manager a Group of Professionals, by McKenna
& Maister

Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible. – Colin Powell, US Secretary of StateManagement is getting people to do what needs to be done. Leadership is getting people to want to do what needs to be done. Managers push. Leaders pull. Managers command. Leaders communicate.
– Warren Bennis, Professor of Business Administration, U. of So. California

Leadership is the art of exchanging the good for the better and the better for the best. Those are tough choices, but that’s what you are paid for. Anyone can make the easy choice – something bad for something good – but very few people have the insight and courage to make the tough choice of letting go of good things in order to have better things.
– Just a Thought, Lloyd Campbell

Often too little authority is given to those who are expected to lead. Bosses and boards tend to limit the authority of a legitimized figure, and then wonder why the person can’t produce up to expectation. During recent years, this has happened to countless executives in industry, education, and government. Stripped of legitimate authority, it is almost impossible to lead.
– POSITIVE POWER, Your Path to a Higher Leadership Profile, by James Fisher

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Management

We find people at the heart of every organization who know exactly what’s right and what’s wrong with it. But between them and the bosses is a layer of people – those whose careers depend on sanitizing that information. Bosses are always surprised at how much knowledge exists further down the ladder.”
– Robert Thirkell, Creative Director at the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC)

The term management comes from the Italian word, maneggio, which pertained to training a horse to do repetitive tricks. Our current concept of managing people may be a bit broader than its Italian antecedent, but it still implies control. Managers have historically worked by recruiting, developing, and controlling budgets, processes, tasks, and people. The notion that you should “set a person free to see if they fly back to you” (or in this case, bring new ideas back to you) is difficult for many managers to grasp. In fact, fundamentally different approaches to managing employees are needed in order to build a successful electronic corporation.
– Arthur Coleman, Sun Microsystems

Studies have shown that executives’ biggest fear is that they will be revealed as inept “imposters.”
– Carol Gallagher, Ph.D.

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Networking

Networking is sharing your contacts with others to create value without the expectation of compensation. Your network is your net worth.
– Tim Sanders, chief solutions officer, Yahoo

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Perspective

Most people ask a question when they got the answer in mind that they want to hear. That’s not really a question. They just want you to help them prove what they already be thinking.
– Life is so Good by George Dawson with Richard Glaubman

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
– Marcel Proust

The trouble with people is not that they don’t know but that they know so much that ain’t so.
– Josh Billings

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing; others judge us by what we have  done.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Without a gut-level sense that you are ultimately in control of what’s happening to you, you won’t even consider the option that you could manage it better.
– David Allen in David Allen’s Productivity Principles

Unless you change how you are, you will always have what you’ve got.
– Jim Rohn

Live out of your imagination, not your history.
– Stephen R. Covey

It is the mark of the educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
– Aristotle

Highly creative people don’t necessarily excel in raw brainpower. They are misfits on some level. They tend to question accepted views and to consider contradictory ones.
– G. Pascal Zachary, author, July 2000 ‘Fast Company’

Look around. Ask questions. Why are there tattoo parlors springing up in trendy neighborhoods? Why are some baby boomers moving in with their kids? Answering them isn’t as important as constantly looking at the world in different ways and realizing that very few people live the way you do. If you can’t draw from new perspectives, how can you create anything that will be meaningful to anyone but yourself?
– Chris Fair, President IMI Marketing & Design in FAST COMPANY magazine

When you renounce something, you’re stuck to it forever. When you fight something, you’re tied to it forever. As long as you fight it, you are giving it power. You give it as much power as you are using to fight it… Don’t renounce it, see through it. Understand its true value and you won’t need to renounce it; it will just drop from your hands.
– Anthony de Mello in Awareness: The perils and opportunities of reality

This is what you should do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men… re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss what insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem.
– Walt Whitman (quote found in Nov/Dec 90 UTNE READER)

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional
– unknown

Real maturity begins when you finally realize that no one is coming to the rescue.
– Brian Tracy in The Science of Self-Confidence

Optimism is the one quality more associated with success and happiness than any other.
– Brian Tracy

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.
– Babe Ruth

What we focus on expands… If we focus on how tired and exhausted we are, we just become all the more tired and exhausted.
– Chellie Campbell, author, seminar leader

Thinking can be counterproductive – at least what people sometimes parade as thinking. REAL thinking is always a good thing, but many people pretend that replaying a tape in their head about something is actually thinking about it.
– David Allen of DavidCo.com in David Allen’s Productivity Principles

If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it.
– Marcus Aurelius

The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.
– Muhammad Ali

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.
– Victor Frankl, author

That something happened to you is of no importance to anyone, not even to you. The important thing about you is what you choose to make happen — your values and choices.
– Ayn Rand, Russian-born writer & Libertarian Philosopher

When the client has been struggling with a goal (like weight loss or financial success) for a long time, at some point the focus has become the process of struggling, period. Weight loss has become a secondary issue. Only when you help the client change their relationship with struggle, can significant progress be made.
– Thomas Leonard, CEO of CoachVille

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Possibility

The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it,  but that it  is too low and we reach it.
– Michelangelo

The central purpose of each life should be to dilute the misery in the world.
– Karl Menninger

It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
– J. K. Rowling in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

If you are not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.
– Author Unknown

Impossibility is the excuse of the impatient, unimaginative, or the apathetic.
– Josh Kuper

People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.
– Saint Augustine

Most people will look back and realize they did not have a great life because it’s just so easy to settle for a good life.
– Jim Collins quoted by Art Kleiner in Strategy + Business

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge
That myth is more potent than history
That dreams are more powerful than facts
That hope always triumphs over experience
That laughter is the only cure for grief
And I believe that love is stronger than death.
– Robert Fulgham

You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything –even poverty–you can survive it.
– Bill Cosby

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!
– Goethe

You gotta walk out of your history. It ain’t history till you walk away from it.
– Dr. Phil McGraw, on Oprah Show 2001

If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints; possibility never.
– Kierkegaard, philosopher

Long life is indeed a blessing, but maybe we overdo our concern for the length of our lives and give insufficient attention to the passion we bring to whatever time we have.
– Thomas Moore

In the face of uncertainty, there is nothing wrong with hope.
– O. Carl Simonton, author

Think ‘impossible’ and dreams get discarded, projects get abandoned, and hope for wellness is torpedoed. But let someone yell the words ‘It’s possible,’ and resources we hadn’t been aware of come rushing in to assist us in our quest. I believe we are all potentially brilliant and creative–but only if we believe it, only if we have an attitude of positive expectancy toward our ideas, and only if we act on them.
– Greg Anderson, The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness

Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work so most people don’t recognize them.
– Ann Landers

Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.
– H. Jackson Brown, Jr., Life’s Little Instruction Book

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
– Joseph Cambbell

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do.
– Kahlil Gibran

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
– Mark Twain, author and humorist

People over 65 were asked, ‘If you could live your life over, what would you do differently?’ They said three things: ‘I’d take time to stop and ask the big questions. I’d be more courageous and take more risks in work and love. I’d try to live with purpose–to make a difference.’
– Richard Leider, founding partner of the Inventure Group

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Relationships

Ideas will only get you so far these days. Count on personal relationships to carry you farther. The new economy is not just about the exchange of information. It’s about the exchange of relationships.
– Pam Alexander, CEO Alexander Ogilvy Public Relations

By nurturing your personal relationships to help people excel, you build exponential impact in the marketplace. Ultimately, their success is your success.
– Pam Alexander, CEO Alexander Ogilvy Public Relations, in Fast Company Magazine

The names of the marketing game in the 2000s and beyond are relationships and service… it takes time to nurture the customer relationships and render superlative service.
– Jay Conrad Levinson, author, Guerrilla Marketing Handbooks

Relationships are the foundation of good health care. This is nothing new. But it’s not something that the industry has made a priority.
– Dr. Bill Thomas, nursing home founder

In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions.
– Margaret Wheatley

To get your message out, count on personal networks. Relationships are the most powerful form of media.
– Pam Alexander, CEO Alexander Ogilvy Public Relations, in Fast Company Magazine

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.
– Theodore Roosevelt

A referral isn’t something that you ask for; a referral is something that you earn. Oh sure, you can ask for them, but it makes everyone feel awkward and will oftentimes destroy a budding relationship.
– Jeffrey Gitomer in The Rochester Business Journal

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Sales/Marketing

The mark of a good salesperson is that his customer doesn’t regard him as a salesperson at all, but a trusted and indispensable adviser, an auxiliary employee who, fortunately, is on someone else’s payroll.
– Harvey Mackay, Swim with the Sharks

Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing but nobody else does.
– Edgar Watson Howe, US editor and novelist

Very often doctors recommend a particular treatment because they are most familiar with it. But we should be advocates for our patients rather than our specialties.
– Dr. Laura Esserman

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Self Expression

When you can’t freely express yourself, you’re already behind bars.
– Mbanna Kantako

Anybody can become angry – that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.
– Aristotle

At a time when more of us have more options than ever, there’s no need to put up with a product or service that doesn’t deliver, a company that we don’t like, or a boss whom we don’t respect.
– Tim Sanders, author of LOVE IS THE KILLER APP, in FAST COMPANY magazine

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Spirituality/Peace

Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm.
– unknown

Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.
– Gandhi

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.
– Marie Curie

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.
– Meister Eckhardt

You can never get to peace and inner security without first acknowledging all of the good things in your life. If you’re forever wanting and longing for more without first appreciating things the way they are, you’ll stay in discord.
– Doc Childre and Howard Martin, The HeartMath Solution

There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
– Albert Einstein

Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped.
– Calvin Coolidge

Companies need to understand what business they’re in. I’m not talking about their operational business. I’m talking about the culture of their company — the spiritual business that they’re in. What a company stands for is just as important as what it sells, because everybody is selling the same stuff.
– Roy M. Spence, Jr., President, GSD&M in FAST COMPANY Magazine

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Teamwork

Even when you’ve played the game of your life, it’s the feeling of teamwork that you’ll remember. You’ll forget the plays, the shots, and the scores, but you’ll never forget your teammates.
– Deborah Miller Palmore (Olympian, Basketball)

A demanding performance challenge tends to create a team. The hunger for performance is far more important to team success than team-building exercises, special incentives, or team leaders with ideal profiles. In fact, teams often form around such challenges without any help or support from management. Conversely, potential teams without such challenges usually fail to become teams.
– Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith, The Wisdom of Teams

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Time

Time is the scarcest resource, and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed.
– Peter Drucker, Management Theorist

Busy, busy, busy we pass the days of our lives – gone all too soon. Gone before we get to our dreams of creative expression, self-fulfillment, nurturing.
– Carol Orsborn

Downtime is where we become ourselves, looking into the middle distance, kicking at the curb, lying on the grass or sitting on the stoop and staring at the tedious blue of the summer sky. I don’t believe you can write poetry, or compose music, or become an actor without downtime, and plenty of it, a hiatus that passes for boredom but is really the quiet moving of the wheels inside that fuel creativity.
– Anna Quindlen in Newsweek

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Work

In every job there is an element of fun. You find the fun and SNAP the job is a game and every task you undertake becomes a piece a cake.
– Mary Poppins, A Spoonful of Sugar

There is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.
– Albert Camus

Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.
– H. Jackson Browne

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
– William James

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all.
– Sam Ewig

As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the pursuit of perfection is a career-limiting move. It is at the heart of many difficulties [people] face in the workplace. You know that you need to produce excellent results, yet perfectionism can impede that ability.
– Carol Gallagher, Ph.D.

Bryan Dyson, the former CEO of Coca-Cola explained that he feels we juggle 5 different balls: a health ball, a family ball, a friends ball, a work ball and a spirituality ball…Four of the five are made out of crystal. If we drop them, they’re going to shatter. Only one ball is made out of rubber and bounces back: the work ball.
– Carol Gallagher, Ph.D.

It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world. The great man or woman is the one who never steps outside his or her specialty or foolishly dissipates his or her individuality.
– Og Mandino, author

You can’t love your life if you hate your work.The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.
– Arnold Toynbee, author

When work is a pleasure, life is a joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery.
– Maxim Gorky, Russian writer

Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting.
– Katherine Hepburn

Attach yourself to your passion, but not to your plan. Adversity is your most honest friend on the path to success.
– Yehoshua Eliovson, Founder, Executive Director, In-Reach

I’ve discovered that the business people who are the busiest, the happiest, and the most prosperous are the ones who are the most generous with their knowledge and their expertise.
– Tim Sanders, Yahoo Chief Solutions Officer, in Fast Company magazine

There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.
– John Adams, 2nd US President

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